Evading
by Kelly123
Summary: The words he had found so difficult to say then flooded from his mouth, as if by volume they could somehow make up for the lack of sincerity with which they were delivered. TWOSHOT.
1. she said

All right, I wasn't happy with the first posting of this because I wrote most of it off the top of my head and in a hurry, resulting in a number of typos that peeved me greatly. Plus I left out the disclaimer and the foreword and all that stuff. So here it is, the characters and such don't belong to me, or else this season would have ended a lot differently. This is a one-shot because I don't think I'm very good at coming up with enough material to make chapter stories. I use "he" and "she" mostly but I think it's pretty obvious who I mean. And I'm not sure if "he" has actually said "it" to "her," but for the sake of this fic I'm saying no. Enjoy!

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She had expected it might take him awhile to say it. 

After all, wasn't it his inability to utter such words that had started the whole debacle the three of them had found themselves tangled in years before? Of course, she liked to think that it was so hard for him to say such things back then because he didn't really mean it, and _that girl _had lain such a guilt trip on him that he was forced into professing something he didn't truly feel. She had been there to witness his declaration, looking on as he stood locked in embrace with that vindictive little prude and finally telling _her_ what she wanted to hear. All the while, her own heart had been turning vicious somersaults as his arms clung to _her, _his mouth speaking those words to_ her_...his eyes however, his eyes were gazing past the female he was speaking to and deep into her own, and she knew that this scene on the front steps of their High School was nothing but an empty promise he didn't intend to keep.

Of course, _her_ smothering behavior had led him to stray, the constant need to hear those things pushing him closer and closer into the arms of another, so needless to say, she was in no hurry to repeat such conduct herself. Andthus she was prepared to wait. It had always been a waiting game with him, for him, biding the time they spent separated by flirting with the affections of a few boys, keeping herself occupied until the wait was up and the time had come for the two of them to be reunited. She had been waiting since she had first laid eyes on him walking up those same High School steps, and she could bear to wait a little longer. She could endure eternity for him.

Because she knew it was so, even if he hadn't come out and blatantly declared it to be. His actions had always spoken louder than words, and they told her plenty without ever saying a word.

She could feel it in the soft tone of his melodic voice when they whispered together into the wee hours of the morning by means of long distance telephone calls, conversations pleasantly void of that awkward chatter they had experienced during the mall carnival so very long ago. She could tell by the cutesy little knick-knacks he sent her from California that he thought she would like, teasing her affectionately about her lack of maturation since the "fluffy-fluff" days in the accompanying postcards. Postcards he signed simply with his name, the lack of a single poignant antecedent which struck her with a sharp pang of hurt whenever she read his messy scrawl and lied to herself that she wasn't expecting to find those four letters before his signature this time. She didn't need to see it on paper, she knew it was there.

Besides, the sincerity of his feelings for her was all but spelled out when he sent those plane tickets to the Nelson residence after school had let out for the summer, a round trip flight for one to the west coast. She knew this was going to be their chance to get away, just the two of them, spending every glorious waking moment together far, far away from the infectious drama that thrived off the bleeding teenage hearts in Degrassi. A beautiful, perfect chance for him to finally tell her those three little words she so desperately longed to hear.

And best of all, there were no red-headed drummers or blue-eyed pianists lurking about to fuck everything up.

Not that she didn't feel the slightest twinge of apprehension upon boarding the plane that simmering July afternoon, after all even the longest of phone calls couldn't make up for all the miles that lay in between them. L.A. might as well have been in another solar system from the way he described it, degrading even the most shocking Toronto scandals to uneducated backwoods antics by comparison. It would be naïve of her to think that such a place not have an effect on a person, despite the fact that they had always lived lifeaccording totheir own rules as her boyfriend had.However, his surprise visit back at graduation had done its part to quell some of her fears regarding their relationship, and most of her was fidgeting with giddy anticipation once her plane began its descent. Still, she couldn't shake that apprehensive feeling, even after she had launched herself at his familiar form the second she had spotted his curly his through the crowd. And as she let his mouth overtake hers in a greedy and long-awaited kiss, this doubt wound itself around her like the brunette locks she was winding around her fingers, her tiny hands lost in his waves of hair.

But surely, this would pass.

He had immediately taken on the role of her personal tour guide, chauffeuring his dazed companion through this dizzying maze of a city in the car his record company had provided, pointing and commenting to the landscape and landmarks around them like a native while maneuvering the automobile with and easy confidence through the god-awful traffic. She was enrapt in him, drinking in his every word, hating to tear her eyes away from his lazy smile towards whatever he might be directing her attention to, and holding onto his guitar-calloused hand for dear life. It was with a slight frown, though, that she noticed a subtle difference in his pronunciation of the word "about." But then again she was being silly, it was only a word and change was bound to happen.

But what had definitely not changed was the fluency and deftness with which their bodies knew each other. Upon finally arriving at his apartment they wasted no time in shedding their unwanted clothing and exposing their perspiration beaded skin to the stifling summer heat. They fell back into routine seamlessly, stumble backwards until you make contact with a wall, lose connection with one another's mouth while shirts are pulled recklessly over head then capture it once again. Fall back against an unmade bed and shimmy out of pants, remembering to pull a condom from the battered wallet in his jeans pocket before allowing the pair to fall to the floor. Throw back your head to moan in release when he's inside you, fighting back tears at how badly you've needed this for such a long, long time.

Afterwards they lay tangled tightly around one another despite the high temperature, content to lay panting and sweating together in the comfortable silence that had followed their reunion. Soundlessly, she turned up her chin and brushed her swollen lips softly against his jaw line, feeling the muscles in his face tighten as he smiled with eyes closed. She knew he was moments from sleep, the dreamy expression she was seen occupy his facecountless times before was proof of that, and she wanted to tell him something before he was lost to the night.

"Craig?" she whispered tentatively, feeling a rush deep within her tell her that now was the moment she had been waiting for.

"Mmmm?" came his drowsy murmur

"I...I love you." She finally proclaimed, the words flowing effortlessly from her mouth and pouring themselves on to his pillow with the dark locks of her hair that lie spread haphazardly across it.

"Mmm, I love you too...Ellie"

_I hope to God I mean a little more then the sounds that escape your tired 4 A.M. lips  
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_And oh-how I wish I meant a little more then a symphony of heavy breathing and the friction of hips_

-**"Himerus And Eros" The Spill Canvas

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**Whatcha think? Let me know!**


	2. he said

Yeah, I know I said it was going to be a one-shot, but then I was trying to write a third installation and I realized I was basically just re-stating the first two from another perspective and that it would be more fitting to write a second chapter instead. So let's call this a two-shot, if there is such a thing, and leave it at that. The characters and all that fun stuff aren't mine, and neither is the song, though it is incredibly beautiful in its entirety. I tied in another character to this one who will be showing up in Downfall, so you had better get your ass over to my profile and read that one as well, or else you won't catch it! Okay, yeah...enjoy!

He had expected it would take him awhile to say it.

After all, he had only uttered those words to a girl once before, the results of which were not something he wished to replicate. It was childish of him, yes, to linger on something that had happened so many years ago, to let old doubts impede what could possibly be a great relationship with a great girl. But still the memories had nagged at him, bringing up old scenes of heartbreak that played back in his mind like a movie he wanted badly to forget. The tense uncertainty, the screaming hormones, the stumbling lips, and most vividly all those motherfucking regrets. He had enough regrets in his eighteen years to last a man a lifetime, and he didn't want this second chance at a relationship to be added to the ranks. She sure as hell wanted him to say it though, that much was blatantly obvious. He pretended not to notice the way in which her eyes would spark and breath would hitch in nervous anticipation whenever she thought the moment could be near, but even via a long distance phone call he knew it was there. Still, whenever he opened his mouth to tell her what she so wanted to hear, the words would catch in his throat before he could give them utterance. And secretly, sometimes when he was on the phone with Marco and heard a female voice in the background, his own breathing would speed up and stomach would twist while his gay friend handed the phone over. Then when his girlfriend came on the line that familiar twinge of regret would grab hold of him and he tried to act like he was happy to hear her.

And then sometimes, the voice coming though the phone didn't belong to a brunette and the regret was even stronger.

But the pangs made him feel guilty, so he went the good boyfriend route. Bought the tickets, picked her up from the airport, drove her around the city...and fucked her admit the squalor of his lonely musician bachelor pad.

It's with a dreamlike surrealism that he remembers the events that had transpired after that. Violent, wracking sobs woke him to find a girl whose beautiful face was contorted with a heartbreaking display of tears and fury and hurt. In apologetic confusion he had asked her what was wrong, and when she relayed his admission through gasps of breath, his heart stopped. Vehemently he had tried to deny it, attempting desperately to convince the both of them that it had been an honest mistake, but in the end assuring neither. The words he had found so difficult to say then flooded from his mouth, as if by volume they could somehow make up for the lack of sincerity with which they were delivered. But it had all been in vain. He had watched her from his window while her petite silhouette hailed a cab, refusing his offer to pay for a hotel room and opting instead to catch the red-eye back to Toronto. Standing there, with so much more separating them than just the thin sheet of dirty glass he pressed his forehead up against, he though that he might have loved her. Maybe given a different time, a different situation, maybe he _had_ loved her, but whatever might have been there before was painfully and obviously absent now.

Because his subconscious had forced those troublesome feelings he had tried to pin down as friendship to the forefront and shown them as what they really were. It had stripped away the layers of untruths he had guarded himself with, and lain this fragile, naked, raw thing called love before him. And the concept scared him shitless.

Of course, there was the small fact that she was thousands of miles away, that he hadn't seen her since his brief visit at graduation, hadn't shared one of those rare and precious phone calls with her since she left for university, and in all honesty probably hadn't said her name aloud until that fateful night. And that he had ruined any chance for a romance when he wrote her off as "just a friend" back at that wedding. The look on her face when he had hold her he was "flattered," God, he had been so stupid. Chalk up yet another regret for the boy with the brown hair.

So he did the only thing he could so, threw himself into his music, the only thing that had ever always made sense to him. He played old songs about girls and feeling he didn't have anymore, and wrote new ones he knew would never see the light of a recording studio. The only person besides himself to hear them was the new roommate the label had sent over, a marketing intern who pretty much kept to himself. The guy listened half-heartedly from the doorway, or the couch, his feedback pretty much always consisting of a "nice dude" or one of those tough guy nods that had always pissed her off to no end. He never inquired as to the song's meanings, and in turn their writer never offered to divulge them. For two people living together, they really knew nothing about each other. The one similarly between the both of them seemed to be that they both hailed from Canada, which according to the label was why they stuck them together. Because all Canadians were friends of course, an excellent use of logic on their part. The guy let on once that he had been an economics major up north, but as to why he had left school he hadn't been to keen on sharing. Being as he didn't really care, his roommate hadn't pressed the issue. But all in all, he seemed nice enough.

Soon though, the musician had other things to occupy his thoughts. A tour was about to roll-out, and as one of the promising new artists he would be included. At first there had been some disagreement been his manager and the record exec's, since he had just begun to cut his first record, and the tour would put him far behind schedule on getting the tracks laid down. For a few breathless days he had waited to hear to the final decision, and when he had finally gotten the go-ahead he felt deliciously relieved, as though he finally exhaled a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. Finally he could pour his soul into something other than thinking himself to death and into what he loved to do, playing loud music for loud crowds. Depressing bedrooms would soon be replaced by smoky clubs filled with people who would half-listen to his words and scream and sing and flail their arms about to his melodies. An addicting adrenaline rush from the high of absolute chaos would claim hold of his very being and push out any thoughts other than that single moment stage until his mind wasn't consumed with red hair and hidden smiles and drumstick calloused hands.

Not that that was on his mind when he had to put in double time at the studio to make the big guys happy a few days before the start of the tour, as he sat in the recording booth and sang love songs to a roomful of stern-looking men. Not that he ever closed his eyes when the headphones covered his ears and thought about what it would be like to have her on the other side of that glass. And the producer's certainly never told him he sang with a palatable passion when this happened...because it didn't. He just sang sometimes better than others, and no, he didn't realize his eyes had been closed on that last track, the one he had landed in one take. No, never.

And he certainly never smiled to himself in his sleep, opening his mouth slightly and letting the words roll off his tongue.

"I love you too, Ellie."

_So picture me drowning, pretending I'm happy,_

_We end up regretting the things...we don't try_

-"Caldecott Tunnel" Something Corporate


End file.
